AvSport of Lock Haven: Designated Pilot Examiner Services

DPE Services through AvSport LLC, 353 Proctor Street, Lock Haven PA 17745

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About DPE Services

Dr. H. Paul Shuch, a former Professor of Physics and Engineering, founded AvSport LLC , the flight school on Piper Memorial Airport in Lock Haven PA, following his retirement from academia in 2007. He currently serves as AvSport's Chief Flight Instructor and Director of Maintenance. He long recognized that there exists a shortage of Designated Pilot Examiners capable of examining Sport Pilot candidates. He was motivated to seek his own DPE rating only after two of his graduates, who earned their pilot certificates in April 2017, had been forced to wait two and three months, respectively, to schedule their Sport Pilot practical tests.

"The Harrisburg Flight Standards District Office", noted Prof. Shuch, "had only one DPE who could actually fit into a Light Sport Aircraft. When one seeks to be appointed a DPE, there is no place on the application form to list his or her weight -- to even ask would be discriminatory. Thus, those of us in the Harrisburg District found that most of our DPEs would overgross an LSA just flying it solo. Our only sufficiently slender DPE had a full-time airline job, significantly limiting his ability to provide examiner services to my students."

The obvious solution was for Shuch himself to obtain a DPE rating. Within a year, while still running his flight school, he had completed the required training, passed the required exams, and on 30 April 2018, completed the final bureaucratic steps and was appointed a Sport Pilot DPE by his local Flight Standards District Office.

Of course, it would be an entirely inappropriate conflict of interest for any flight instructor to examine a student whom he or she had personally trained and recommend for testing . Guidelines specified in FAA Order 8900.2B state that, before a DPE can examine an applicant to whom he or she has previously provided instruction, the applicant must have received at least three hours of flight instruction in the 2 calendar months prior to the test, in preparation for the test, from another instructor who is the recommending instructor. Thus, Prof. Shuch has chosen to hire additional Adjunct Flight Instructors for his school. Consistent with FAA regulations, his current policy is to personally train his students only through the Cross-Country portion of his curriculum. Thereafter, each student is assigned to another flight instructor, who will complete the candidate's training, help the student to compete an IACRA application, and recommend him or her for the FAA Practical Test. At this point, Shuch removes his Flight Instructor cap, dons his Examiner hat, and views his former students with fresh eyes.

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This page last updated 1 January 2024

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